“How exciting!” murmured Bradford, joining them at last. “Which one will you take?” Abel said nothing, but he was clearly fascinated.
Dennis eased the gun farther forward until the butt plate rested against his shoulder. He really wasn’t looking forward to firing the thing from a prone position. He reached forward and adjusted the rear sight’s elevation. As powerful as the weapon was, it had a markedly high trajectory and he’d sighted it in for fifty-yard intervals. When raised, the rear sight stood about four inches high, and the range markers were considerably farther apart the higher they went.
“I’ll take ’em as they come,” he announced. He was trying a new bullet today. It was essentially the same lead slug he’d used before, but it was capped and cored with a pointed bronze “penetrator.” The penetrator made the bullet a little longer, to keep the same weight, and he wasn’t entirely sure it would be as stable in flight. He settled in on the stock and peered through the sights. A mighty boar was shoveling great snoutfuls of turf aside as it searched for insects and roots. The clacking, gnashing sounds of tusks were constant.
“You go for big bull… boar…” Moe said. “I tell when most are best.”
“Sure.”
“Why not shoot now?” Abel asked. “There are half a dozen behind him.”
“Gotta line up their vitals, not just their bodies,” Silva answered absently. He checked his priming powder and thumbed the hammer to full cock. Settling back in, he caressed the trigger, waiting for the word.
The wait seemed interminable. A couple of times, Moe tensed, and it seemed like he was about to give the signal, but then he relaxed slightly. Through it all, Silva was as still as stone except for the tiny adjustments he made to his aim, following the vitals of the big boar. Sweat dripped unnoticed down his face and soaked the black patch covering his left eye.
“Now,” said Moe, without any warning at all. Almost before the word was fully uttered, Silva squeezed the trigger. The flint leaped forward, scraping a shower of yellow-hot sparks from the frizzen and kicking it open to expose the priming powder. A jet of flame and white smoke erupted in front of Silva’s face, and with a horrendous cracking roar, the main charge vomited the quarter pound missile from the barrel-and heaved Silva’s shoulder a foot backward. There was a nightmarish shrieking squeal that reverberated in the cut, and through the smoke they saw the big boar perform an almost vertical leaping lunge. He collapsed in the turf, back feet kicking spastically. There was pandemonium among the rest of the herd. Two other dark shapes lay where they’d fallen; another was performing writhing cartwheels. The rest were thundering in all directions like small locomotives gone amok. One large beast came directly at them, and Moe let fly with his massive crossbow, driving a shaft through the charging creature’s snout and probably straight into its brain. It collapsed in a heap perhaps a dozen yards short of their position. That fast, all the surviving rhino-pigs were gone, vanishing into the dense growth on either side of the cut.
Silva was standing, already pouring another charge of powder down the massive gun. “Whoo-ee!” he said excitedly. “Good stick, Moe! I figgered I was gonna hafta poke that last one off us with my rifle muzzle!” He shook his head and slapped the holstered 1911 Colt at his side. “Never would’ve even got my pistol out!”
Lawrence scampered forward with nothing but a short spear. With a peculiar cry, he plunged it into the one still-thrashing pig.
Dennis nodded toward him, smiling. “Junior’s growin’ up,” he said, almost wistfully. “Come on, fellas. Let’s see how many we got besides ol’ Moe’s there!”
Having heard the shot, the bearers were already approaching. They knew whenever Silva fired his big gun, there’d be work to do.
Abel stared at Moe’s rhino-pig as they passed it. “Will they clean the beasts here?” he asked.
“Sure. No sense waggin’ their guts back. Makes ’em lighter.”
“I’d like to watch.” He looked at Silva. “Not that I’m finished watching you, sir! You are every bit as fascinating as any entrails, I’m sure!”
Silva blinked. “Yeah, well, thanks.” With his rifle fully loaded and at the ready, Silva marched forward to view the carnage he’d created. “Four for sure.” He beamed. “Big sumbitches line up, little sumbitches bunch up!” He held out the Doom Whomper. “What a gun!”
“Two ’lood trails!” Lawrence announced. His voice was a little shaky, but he seemed excited. He was spattered with the blood of the pig he’d finished. Dennis sobered.
“Rats. We’ll hafta go after ’em, and they’re dangerous enough when they ain’t hurt and sore at you. Mr. Bradford, why don’t you and young Abel here stay and study these boogers while the bearers cut ’em up. Me and Moe”-he glanced at the “lizard”-“and Larry’ll track these other ones.”
They quickly found the first rhino-pig. It hadn’t gone far and had probably bled out within moments of being hit. Silva wasn’t sure which one it was in the lineup, but the entry and exit wounds were quite large and about the same size, so he figured it was toward the back. Moe trilled a call to the bearers and, returning to the cut, the three trackers commenced following the final blood trail. This one put them a little on edge, and they’d saved it for last for a reason. Moe said the color of the blood indicated a liver hit. A fatal wound certainly, but not necessarily immediately fatal. The more time they gave the beast to die in peace, the less likely it would be to kill one of them when they found it.
They advanced carefully. Rhino-pigs were notorious for playing dead when wounded. Sometimes, their last act was to charge a tracker, taking revenge with its final breath. Moe always said never to approach a “dead” rhino-pig lying on his belly. One that was really dead couldn’t lie like that; it would always lie on its side. If it was on its belly, it was poised to strike.
They crept along a considerable distance, the blood trail clear and dark, the ground disturbance unmistakable. This was some of the densest jungle Dennis had been in yet. The path they’d once followed while tracking the super lizard was on the east side of the cut and had been fairly easy going, in retrospect. It had been made by an animal dozens of times as big as a rhino-pig. This path wasn’t much larger than the animal that left it, and sometimes all of them were forced to their hands and knees. It was like following a shark down a tunnel, Dennis thought uncomfortably. At some point you knew you were bound to run into the bastard, and by then, he was probably turned around and waiting. Raucous cries permeated the jungle and harsh coughs and snorts stopped their progress occasionally. Dennis knew about super lizards and rhino-pigs and many other creatures by now, but only Moe had a real idea what other dangerous predators they were likely to meet. Lawrence proceeded, alert to every movement, his short spear held before him like a sword. Little lizard’s really a pretty good guy to have with you, times like this, Dennis decided. He knew he was in over his depth. He’d never been this far from the cut before.
With considerable relief, they noticed the jungle begin to thin as they approached one of the many clearings probably created by lightning fires. This one was recent, and blackened stumps protruded through the lush, fresh undergrowth. The foliage was really a type of long-leafed grass, Dennis realized, and it was damp and clingy to walk through, even though it was barely calf-high. Lots of herbivores probably frequented places like this, he thought. They heard a squeal. Then another. Lawrence’s fur bristled and his eyes became intense as he sniffed the air.
“Just ahead!” Moe told them.